Chicanery

When I first saw Chicanery as the word of the week my immediate thought was to twist it a bit and have a look at the way chicanes are used in motor racing to slow speeds and add some technical difficulties to the track. Well, that thought lasted 0.13 seconds as I realised that I’d have to be thinking about F1 for about 650 words which is beyond my comprehension.

So it’s back to chicanery. According to the website Wordfoolery:

‘the word history of chicanery is enshrouded in enough mystery to suggest subterfuge. It entered English in the early 1600s in a legal context. It referred to quibbling and sophistry and came from the similar French word chicanerie and the Middle French verb chicaner (to quibble or to pettifog).

How it reached French is a little more debatable. It may be from the Middle Low German schikken (to arrange) or may even be from a golf-like game once played in the Languedoc region of the south of France. Perhaps early French lawyers liked to quibble over points of law as they got in a round before court?’

It is not a commonly used word these days and when it is used it can refer to what I’d call sharp practice in areas such as politics or finance. Clever, often legal manoeuvres designed to gain an advantage, sometimes at the expense of fairness or transparency. It’s not necessarily outright fraud, but definitely on the fringes.

To take things a bit further you could ask yourself:

‘Have you ever encountered a situation where things just felt… off? Not outright illegal, perhaps, but certainly not straightforward or honest?

At its heart, chicanery is about deception, but it’s a specific kind of deception. It’s not the blunt force of outright lying, but rather the artful, clever, and often dishonest talk or behaviour used to trick people. Think of it as a sophisticated form of trickery, often involving wordplay, legalistic loopholes, or subtle manipulation to get what one wants.

What makes chicanery particularly insidious is its subtlety. It often relies on the victim not quite realizing they’re being deceived until it’s too late. It’s the difference between a direct lie and a carefully constructed narrative designed to mislead. The investigation into political corruption, for instance, might reveal not just outright bribery, but a web of political chicanery that obscured the truth for years.

So, the next time you feel like something isn't quite adding up, or someone's arguments seem a little too clever by half, consider the possibility of chicanery. It’s a reminder that while honesty is the best policy, not everyone adheres to it, and sometimes, the most effective way to understand deceit is to recognize the subtle art behind it.’

Now the next question is to what extent can chicanery be acceptable? Because all of the above answer to what you were asking yourself was, in fact, what came out when I entered the words:

“The difference between chicanery and dishonesty AI 300 words” into a website entitled Create AI Blog.

So have I been dishonest or used chicanery in this week’s blog?

I should add I’ve never used AI before.

I think this classes as chicanery:

Epitaph On A Tyrant

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

                                                                                           W. H. Auden

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Is AI a new concept?

How many of you remember Knight Rider on TV in the 1980s? It starred David Hasslehoff as Michael Knight, a sort of vigilante fighting criminals. He was aided by his car Kitt, that had AI features, here is an overview:

Knight Rider was an American action crime drama television series created and produced by Glen A. Larson. The series was originally broadcast on NBC from September 26, 1982, to April 4, 1986. The show stars David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight, a sleek and modern crime fighter assisted by KITT, an advanced, artificially intelligent, self-aware, and nearly indestructible car.

It had satellite navigation and we all thought “yea right that's never gonna happen”. However it had already been invented in the 1950’s and used by the US military in the 1960’s.

The first satellite navigation system was the Transit system, which was launched into orbit by NASA in 1960. The Transit system was developed and operated by APL and was used by the US Navy to provide positioning for their Polaris ballistic missile submarines. It was in use from 1964 to 1996.

The first in-car navigation system available to consumers was Etak Navigation, which was released in 1985. Etak Navigation used digitized maps that were streamed to the system from tape cassettes.

The first production car with a built-in GPS navigation system was the Mazda Eunos Cosmo. General Motors also introduced a built-in GPS navigation system called ONIS, which was initially available in Avis Rent A Car vehicles in Florida in 1992.

Precision GPS navigation became available to the public in 2000, and GPS-supported technology is now used in many devices, including smartphones and cars.

Sat Navigation

You need me on every journey
To show you the way you should go
Without my expert direction
An A to Z you would have to follow
Navigation, I’m Sat navigation

My voice can be changed in an instant
I can be whoever you want
A man who is very assertive
Or a girl with sweet dulcet tones
For drivers I’ve solved all their problems
No need to ever get lost
unless you’ve not updated my system
Then you could end up counting the cost
Navigation, I’m Sat Navigation

Proceed on current road
Watch out don’t squash that toad
At the roundabout take the third exit
To the channel tunnel (before it’s Brexit)
Don’t worry I’ve got Euro maps loaded
No problem getting back from Calais to Dover

Oops do a U turn where possible
The route your on is impractical
Your trying to trick me and test me out
But I’m a sat nav and there is no doubt
That my robotic intelligence is second to none

Hey watch out you nerd you’ve overrun
This narrow lane and I think we’re done
Your wheels are spinning on a narrow cliff ledge
Proceed on current road.and don’t fall over the edge
Navigation, Sat Navigation, Ahhhhhhhh!

From ‘Rhymes and Reasons’ 2021

Rick Varden (aka the Urban Poet)

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AI (Artificial Intelligence)

I suppose the first thing to be addressed on the writing of a piece on the subject of AI (Artificial Intelligence) is whether it is me or a robot writing this. No comment.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be defined in many ways. However, within this guidance (from The Alan Turing Institute), we define it as an umbrella term for a range of algorithm-based technologies that solve complex tasks by carrying out functions that previously required human thinking. Decisions made using AI are either fully automated, or with a ‘human in the loop’. As with any other form of decision-making, those impacted by an AI supported decision should be able to hold someone accountable for it.

Well, that seems fairly straightforward, let’s just check up on wiki about what may lie behind solving these complex tasks:

AI researchers have devised a number of tools to solve these problems...Bayesian networks are a tool that can be used for reasoning (using the Bayesian inference algorithm) learning (using the expectation–maximization algorithm)...Probabilistic algorithms...perception systems analyse processes that occur over time (e.g., hidden Markov models or Kalman filters).

Ok, so I’m a bit weak on Bayesian inference algorithms so how did we get to the point that we can be even talking about such things. And for that I’m going to go back to the very beginnings of computing. Back to 1836 and Cambridge University mathematician Charles Babbage and Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace who invented the first design for a programmable machine, known as the Analytical Engine. Babbage outlined the design for the first mechanical computer, while Lovelace foresaw the machine's capability to go beyond simple calculations to perform any operation that could be described algorithmically.

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace was born Augusta Ada Byron on 10 December 1815, the only child of the poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Byron. Augusta was named after Byron’s half-sister, Augusta Leigh, and was called ‘Ada’ by Byron himself.

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace

Ada was brought up by her mother, who educated her as a mathematician and a scientist in order to avoid the ‘poetic’ influences of her father’s nature. Ada was a bright and curious child, and from her early years experimented with mechanical things. She described her approach as ‘poetical science’ and herself as an ‘Analyst (& Metaphysician)’.

As a young adult, her mathematical talents led her to an ongoing working relationship and friendship with Babbage. In particular Ada was enthralled by Babbage’s plans for the Analytical Engine. Between 1842 and 1843, she translated an article by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea on the engine, which she supplemented with an elaborate set of notes of her own, simply called Notes.

Her notes not only presented the first documented computer program, but also, going well beyond Babbage’s ideas of computers as manipulating numbers, outlined their creative possibilities. She famously wrote:
‘The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.’

She also identified the limits of what computers can do, in a remark highlighted in one of Alan Turing’s most famous papers as ‘Lady Lovelace’s Objection’.

the Artificial Engine

Lovelace had wide scientific interests and she speculated in a far-thinking way on the potential of mathematics and computing: for a “calculus of the nervous system”, or to investigate music.

She died at the age of 36 – the same age that her father had died – on 27 November 1852. She was buried, at her request, next to her father at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene near Lord Byron’s ancestral home at Newstead Abbey. In 1993 a blue plaque was erected at her home at 12 (formerly 10) St James’s Square, London, in commemoration of her being a ‘pioneer of the computer’.
– Liz McCarthy, Bodleian Libraries

Extraordinarily I cannot find a poem about Lovelace by a recognized poet anywhere. This needs to be rectified.

In the meantime I couldn’t resist asking an AI website for help. Here is what it came up with after shoving in a few words from the above:

Untitled

In the realm of verse and rhyme, a marvel to behold,
A computer program, with AI to unfold,
Bayesian inference algorithms, at work so grand,
Creates a poem, with human in the land.

With each line, a new thought arises,
As the program learns, with each surprise,
The human touch, a gentle guide,
In this dance of words, they abide.

The computer hums, with logic so bright,
A poem born, in the digital light,
Yet, the heart and soul, a human's own,
In this collaboration, a symphony shown.

The words flow like a river's stream,
As the algorithm, with each line, it gleams,
The human in the loop, a vital part,
In this poetic journey, a work of art.

The poem's depth, a testament to the mind,
That with AI, a new art form we find,
A fusion of tech and human thought,
A new frontier, in the world we've sought.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q. (Or is it?)

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